Assisted Living and Nurse Aides To The Rescue For the Elderly

Many assisted living facilities are well equipped with the right medical staffing to sustain a healthy and well maintained environment when caring for the elderly. With today's understanding of the human mind and techology, many facilities including hospitals are also combining hypnotherapy as a form of healing and stop bad habits like smoking and coping with daily stress in these centers.

From nurses to nurse aides with certification and training, assisted living facilities provide not only comfortable housing but also trained medical staff that can administer medication, physical therapy, wellness activities and specialized dieting to care for its residence.

This allows for a happy and healthy environment where our elders not only feel cared for an wanted but also loved and nurtured.

The Minnesota Department of Health has substantiated multiple charges of neglect or abuse of residents at the former Golden Horizons assisted living facility in Tower. An investigation of the allegations, completed April 28, found that an overnight aide at the facility repeatedly failed to provide required care for three residents with dementia who needed assistance using the bathroom. The aide also took advantage of a fourth resident, by reportedly stealing a pain-killing medication from the resident, and was believed to be involved with missing drugs from at least two other residents at the facility.

According to the MDH investigation, Golden Horizons failed to discipline the aide, failed to conduct its own internal investigation of the abuses, and failed to report the maltreatment.

The aide, who is not identified, was not fired, but eventually left by his or her own choice.

The investigation found that the aide had repeatedly failed to provide toileting assistance for three residents suffering from varying types of dementia, or help changing their “briefs”. Morning aides suspected the night aide was failing to provide required care because they repeatedly found the residents “completely saturated in urine, through to the bed linen,” on mornings after the night aide had worked. All three of the residents had cognitive issues that prevented them from reporting the lack of assistance directly.

The daytime aides told the investigator that they had reported the situation to the facility’s administrator, but that nothing appeared to have been done about the situation. The daytime aides sought to verify that the night aide was failing to change the residents’ briefs by marking them before leaving for the night, an effort that helped to document the night aide’s lack of assistance.

The documentation did prompt the center’s administrator to draft a disciplinary notice but the aide never signed it and took both copies. The aide was allowed to continue to work until leaving voluntarily some time later.

The investigation also concluded that the aide was involved in the theft of 96 tablets of a controlled substance prescribed to a separate resident who remained mentally sound. The investigator determined that the aide was reporting that the resident was taking the drug (tramadol) when, in fact, the aide was systematically stealing it.

In other not so glamarous situations, assisted living places of residence have also been victim of robberies according to the Journal Sentinel :

Danielle Thomas, 23, of Milwaukee, who was wanted in a 2017 armed robbery at an assisted-living home, was taken into custody Monday morning, May 28 by the U.S. Marshals Service, according to the Elm Grove Police Department's Facebook page.

Thomas was the final suspect being sought in connection with the the Nov. 13 armed robbery of a residence on Westmoor Terrace in Elm Grove. Two armed subjects entered an assisted living home through an unlocked door, according to the criminal complaint.

One suspect held the victim at gunpoint while another suspect demanded valuables; they reached into the victim's purse and removed $545, a wallet, credit cards, cellphone, and identification and attempted to remove a large-screen TV from the wall, the complaint said.

In conclusion, assisted living facilities even though equipped with a trained staff of certified nurse assistants and hospice care specialists alongside administrative staff, still fall victim to crimes. Its up to its staff to continue doing the good work of not only taking care of its residence but also reporting unruly activity.